This past week, Stephen Hawking, the ALS-afflicted physicist and hypocrite, announced that in deference to Palestinian “academics” (a more appropriate term would be propagandists) he would not attend a conference hosted in Israel. Proponents of the Boycott Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement rejoiced at the news and the discredited New York Times noted that Hawking’s provocative action is, “likely to help the anti-Israel campaigners significantly.”

Ironically, Hawking’s voice activated device that enables him to communicate, utilizes microprocessors developed in Israel. In addition, Israeli scientists and universities are on the cusp of cutting edge research on ALS, the disease that afflicts Hawking. I’m certain that once those breakthroughs are achieved, Hawking would have no moral qualms about receiving Israeli medical treatment just as he has no reservations about utilizing Israeli voice enabling technologies.

But beyond Hawking’s sheer hypocrisy in utilizing Israeli technology to improve his own quality of life is his insincerity in boycotting the Middle East’s only democracy while ignoring the Arab world’s depravity, xenophobia, homophobia and misogyny. Hawking has provided ample example of Britain’s transition from old-school anti-Semitism to what famed human rights activist Natan Sharansky described as new anti-Semitism, a malevolent form of anti-Semitism masquerading as anti-Zionism.

The hullabaloo over Hawking’s announcement is also demonstrative of the BDS’s colossal failure. Since its inception in 2005, the BDS movement and its founder, Omar Barghouti – a Joseph Goebbels reincarnation – have failed miserably in their nefarious attempts to demonize and ostracize the Jewish State. Israel continues to flourish culturally, academically, economically and politically while its Islamic Arab neighbors continue their descent into blackness and medieval backwardness.

Significantly, during the week of Hawking’s asinine pronouncements three major events occurred that vastly overshadowed the useful idiot’s duplicitous insincerities. First, Israel and China signed a $400 million trade agreement, which expands existing trade and financial agreements between the two countries to more than $2 billion. Second, Facebook is in advanced talks to acquire the Israeli mobile satellite navigation start-up Waze for $1 billion. And third, Warren Buffett bought the rest of Iscar, an Israeli maker of metal cutting tools for $2.05 billion. Buffet had previously purchased an 80% stake in Iscar for $4 billion. The Iscar acquisition represents the first time in Berkshire’s history that it acquired a company based outside of the United States.

The fact that these significant developments did not make the same splash as Hawking’s inanity is testament to the fact that they occur with such regular frequency that they have been transformed into mundane everyday events. The BDS movement, for all its clatter, has little to show for its success and must thus grasp at straws, touting obscure “poets” like Gil Scott-Heron as one its automatons while neglecting to note that the majority of today’s leading artists including, Justin Bieber, 50 Cent, Rihanna, Elton John, Rod Stewart and Madonna, have performed in Israel in the last few years. Pit Bull, Alicia Keys and Barbara Streisand plan to perform this summer.

Today’s malevolent enemies of freedom, like Barghouti and his BDS campaign, are more bark than bite. In eight relentless years, they’ve failed to move the campaign beyond the fringe or even scratch the surface of Israel’s economy. Like the infamous Goebbels and his Nazis, Barghouti’s and his BDS are destined for the trash heap of history.